Movies That Never Were (1 Viewer)

[Ray_R]

Here are some more, with alot of info from wikipedia.

Crimson Eagle - Due to the not as high expectations of The Jewel of the Nile, the proposed third film of the Romancing the Stone trilogy only got so far as late development.

Monkey Island - What had turned into the third game in the series, The Curse of Monkey Island, this intended film I assume was nixed due to the box-office failure of Cutthroat Island. I've found a site for concept art for what looks like a highly stylised version of the characters. Maybe it would've been animated or stop-motion in the terms as The Nightmare Before Christmas was. Many attempts have been made to draw parallels between the series and the film trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean. This would be very appropriate since Ron Gilbert openly admits that sections of Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge borrowed extensively from the original Disneyland ride, such as the famous "dog holding the keys to the jail-cell". Even the character Will Turner is eerily reminiscent of Guybrush Threepwood, the main protagonist and player controlled character in the Monkey Island tetralogy. There are also other numerous cross inspirations of which perhaps many other people could catch on to.

Ghostbusters 3 - I don't recall much about it. Perhaps someone else could be so inclined as to spill the details?

Shanghai Dawn - Allegedly the third film in the Shanghai Trilogy. The first two, titled Shangai Noon and Shanghai Knights, detail the adventures of Roy O'Bannon (played by Owen Wilson) and Chon Wang (played by Jackie Chan) in the Old West and Victorian England. Perhaps the third film was supposed to have the duo travel to Africa or back to China? Maybe it's still in development hell for all I know. Just a rumour at this stage, I guess.

John Woo's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - To be produced by John Woo and use CGI environs. Allegedly was supposed to go back to it's darker, more grittier comic book counterpart. Project stalled presumably under John Woo's version and is still going ahead in the CGI department for a tentative release in 2007.

 

[TonyD]

A Day at the U.N.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: The Marx Brothers
Source material: Original Screenplay by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond
Summary: The Marx Brothers invade the U.N.
Other trivia: The death of Chico Marx nixed this project. Was to have been made between The Apartment & One, Two, Three.


i would have loved to see my favorite bunch of nuts directed by Wise. too bad.

well the turtles movie is going through, i guess Woo is not atached?

how about rocky starring james caan

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Shouldn't that be Wilder, not Wise?

I don't know. On one level, it would have been interesting to see a Marx/Wilder collaboration - but a Marx Brothers film over 10 years after Love Happy? We're a long way away from their heyday at that point.

Plus, I think the brothers were really the stars of their films, while Wilder himself has such a strong voice, that one wonders how they would have worked together. it could have been great, or really awful.

But then, I never even heard of this project until you mention it, and the concept does sound like it would have potential.

 

[TonyD]

matthew yes wilder.

you might be right about them working together.
they were maybe a bit past their best but wilder may have been able
to get it back.

i quoted that from, i think, the first post in this discussion.

 

[KieranO'C]

Sergio Leone's planned film before he died was supposed to be 'Stalingrad'.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

The sequels to Buckaroo Banzai and Innerspace.

 

[Ray_R]

There was supposed to be a sequel to Innerspace? Did they mention it after the credits? I owns the DVD, of course.

And when-oh-when are they going to make Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League?

 

[Bonnie*F]

I actually have a copy of the VHS. Wouldn't mind getting it on DVD. It's a movie that you either like or dislike. I don't think anyone really feels very strong either way about it. I, personally, still enjoy watching it occassionally.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I remember reading a blurb about Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins in MacBeth about fifteen years ago. That would have been something.

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

What I've been told was that when Buckaroo flopped, they changed the name of the main character and sold the script to another studio... and it was made as Big Trouble in Little China.

 

[Ray_R]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_tro...uction_History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adv...ension#Sequels

Read the last paragraph for the Buckaroo Banzai sequels and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

There's a blog entry over at Cinematical, called Cinematical Seven: Films We'll Never Get to Watch on this very topic - and with some films listed that have already been mentioned in this thread.

 

[DaleC]

One word:

"Neuromancer"

 

[Haden]

Evil Dead 4 - Presumably following the original ending to Army of Darkness, with Ash in a post-apocalyptic London. You'd think with all the money Sam Raimi has made from his success with the Spiderman trilogy, he could personally finance this as a low-budget sequel (like the previous films) and then use his bigger clout now to convince a studio to distribute it.

Another one that comes to mind is the 1984 Judd Nelson comedy Making the Grade. Just like with Buckaroo Banzai, they had the arrogance to presume this film would be a big enough box office hit to immediately warrant a sequel, and a sequel was promised in the closing credits. Of course that never happened.

Wasn't there serious consideration for doing Forrest Gump 2 in the late 90s, based on the sequel novel? That never happened, probably because Tom Hanks became such a huge star that he didn't NEED to do a pointless sequel like that to retain his success.

I also recall some talk 5-6 yrs ago about Coppola wanting to finally do a Godfather 4 similar in style to Godfather 2, with parallel storylines showing Vincent Corleone's reign of power in the 1980s and the flashback story of his father Sonny Corleone when he was a young man in the 1930s (potentially played by Leonardo DiCaprio), partially based on the 1930s segments of Puzo's Godfather novel that didn't end up in the first 2 films. The setting of the 1930s timeframe would have also allowed Robert DiNiro to reprise his role as a "younger" Vito Corleone, but from our perspective, older than the DiNiro of the 1920s scenes in Godfather 2. I really wish that idea would have panned out. It sounded a lot more interesting than Godfather 3.

Then there's the alternate Alien 3 set on Earth. It's amazing that they even went as far as doing a teaser trailer for this idea, but then scrapped it and revamped the plot for the 3rd film to bet set on the prison colony.

There was some rumors a couple years ago about Luc Besson wanting to do Mathilda - a sequel to Leon: The Professional, with Mathilda all grown up and working as an assasin of her own. I would have loved to see Natalie Portman reprise her role in this, playing a tough, gritty female assasin. It's the kind of edgy role she should be doing instead of her usual chick flicks and period dramas. Doing a film like V for Vendetta gave me hope that she'd pursue this, but I think the idea fell through a few years back.

And just like with the King Conan sequel that will probably never happen, let's not forget the long-rumored Mad Max 4. I'm sure Mel Gibson's recently tarnished reputation isn't helping make this film crawl out of development hell.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

It has been reported that work is progressing on the Forrest Gump sequel.

 

[Will_B]

II'd read that Strange Brew 2 was a week from filming when its financing fell through. This was just after Bob & Doug had reappeared in beer commercials, a few years ago (but many years after the original).

 

[MatthewA]

In the late 1960s, MGM had Julie Andrews lined up to do two musicals: a film version of the Broadway musical "She Loves Me," and an Irving Berlin biopic called "Say it With Music." James Aubrey put the kibash on both of them.

Fox also considered a Sound of Music sequel in the late 1980s. The closest we ever came to that was a MAD Magazine parody, "The Sound of More Music."

In the late 1980s, Disney brought in P.L. travers to write the screenplay for a proposed Mary Poppins sequel with Sarah Brightman starring. The moment Disney suits suggested Michael Jackson to play Bert's brother Barney, it was dead in the water.

Other Disney films that never were:
—Rainbow Road to Oz, starring some of the Mouseketeers (late 1950s)
—Chanticleer, an animated version of the rooster story (early 1960s)
—a musical Hansel and Gretel with songs by the Sherman Brothers and a script by the late AJ Carothers (mid-1960s)
—It's a Small World: The Movie (1970s)
—Tron 2.0 (a few years ago, became a video game instead)

Also in planning for years was Universal's animated film of the musical "Cats", planned for release in the late 1990s.

 

[Abe D]

The Yellow "M"

based on the comic book 'La Marque Jaune' by Edgar P. Jacobs. London, 1930s, Captain Blake and Professor Mortimer have been assigned to help solve the mystery of the Yellow Mark, codename for a most devious and enigmatic master criminal...

The film was budgeted at around $35mill, with James Huth at the helm, and Rufus Sewell to star.

I have no idea how it fell apart, but I hope it gets resurrected with a new cast because the adventures of Blake and Mortimer are a goldmine ready for cinematic adaptation.

 

[KurtEP]

I heard a rumor that Chris Cunningham was considered to direct a movie based on this at one time. That would have been interesting. Some of his music videos give me the impression that he'd be perfect to interpret Gibson's ideas about bizarre elective plastic surgery. Neuromancer would be a bit tough, though, just because the idea of virtual reality has come so far since he came up with it. His vision was fairly limited in Neuromancer, from what I remember, though it's been a few years since I last read it.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Words can't describe how glad I am that this did not happen. How do you make a movie out of that ride?